Just Catching Up

I know my last post says it was from October 18, but it wasn't. I have blogged more recently than that. That's why I was able to whine that we didn't have any trick-or-treaters and post pictures of Howie in his Halloween costume. Anyway, I don't really know why that was the date my blog entry shows, and I don't know what date this entry will say it is, but here goes! This is sort of a catch up entry of what we did last month. We celebrated our one year annivesary on November 16th. And to help us celebrate I took November 13th and 14th off of work and Tim and I just hung out together for the weekend. It was great. On the 14th we dropped Howie off at the vet to be altered, lucky dog, and we went and hiked one of the trails on South Mountain. It was a ton of fun and we reminisced all about how we ended up being married and committed ourselves to writing the story down for posterity . . . one of these days. It still hasn't happened. Anyway, here are a couple pictures from our hike.









We didn't get any pictures of Howie when we brought him home after his day at the vet. We really should have. He was pathetic. He didn't respond well to the anesthetics and they had to do an emergency IV to get his blood pressure up and he was just pathetic when we brought him home. He moaned every time someone touched him to move him and at one of the stop light on the way home he tipped over, moaned and wet in his car seat. It was one of his sadder days. When the veterinary nurse was briefing us for check out she told us Howie Ba-Zowie wasn't supposed to jump for two weeks after surgery. Whatever! These pictures are from the following day when he was feeling 100% better, and was jumping as much as ever, but he had to wear a cone because he wouldn't stop licking his incision. The cone was the post painful part of the whole experience for him. He hated it. It really humiliated him to wear it.





Now for Thanksgiving! Doot doo DOO! Tim's sister Roxanne and her family came up from Yuma to spend Thanksgiving with us and it was so much fun having them here, despite all the confusion as to whether or not Vance (Roxanne's husband) had to work Thanksgiving Day or not. I was a little nervous that Howie would try to eat the baby, Das, but since Roxanne and family brought their dog, Zoe, Howie didn't bother the baby at all. He pestered Zoe like crazy, but she was quite patient with him. Here are some pictures of our feast, Zaily and Thaeden, Zoe and the rest of us feasters at the holiday table (or bar in our case).









Finally, just because it's cute, here is a video of Howie doing the trick that Tim taught him. Howie thinks it's torture, but we think it's cute enough it's worth convincing a performance out of him regularly.

Halloween Fun!!

Welp, Tim and I didn't really do much for Halloween this year. We went grocery shopping for the first time in almost four weeks, but we didn't bother buying any candy to hand out because I was pretty sure we weren't going to have any trick-or-treaters. I was right. The doorbell didn't ring once, which was a little disappointing. It was our first Halloween in our first house and I couldn't even talk my sister into bringing her munchkins over for some Halloween goodies! Oh well.

Tim and I did go to Hollywood video and rented a couple of movies - not so much scary because I don't do scary movies - using a giftcard I got at a bridal shower, I believe, and they were pretty intense! We rented "Premonition" with Sandra Bullock and watched it for Halloween and it was enough intenseness for me for a while! Then later in the week we watched "Red Eye". I'd seen it before but it still made me so nervous at some parts that I couldn't watch!

Anyway, we did dress up our little Howie for Halloween (not that anyone saw him in his costume since we had zero (0) Trick-or-Treaters). He was a super-cute, if not fierce, Pirate Puppy. Here are a few of my favorite photos!


Howie and Scallywag Tim


In this picture he looks a little bit stealthy and pirate"ish".


Here he just looks humiliated about the costume we made him wear. Poor sad Howie!


And this is how he felt about his hat!

Finally, just for kicks and giggles, and because I think they are the cutest ever and deserve to be adored, here are a few pictures of our nieces and nephews in their Halloween attire!


The Sandall Coven (Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen has nothing on these vampires!) and Spider Man to save the day!


The Harry Potter gang - Hermione, Harry and Dobby!


A Butterfly and Iron Man!

HOWIE'S LITTLE EARS

This post will be dedicated to the evolution of our little How-dawg's ears. I can't say what they looked like when he was born, because, well, I never saw them. The first time I ever saw his ears he was nine weeks old and they were really cute and flopsy forward and looked like this:

And just because he is so dang cute, here's another picture from our first day with the How-dawg!



Then, a couple weeks after we got our little bundle of hair (he doesn't have fur and therefore doesn't shed too much! Happy Day!)his ears looked more like this:



They were flopsy backward and they were so cute! Tim thought he looked girly and he wasn't such a fan, but everyone at the vet's office thought he was just the CUTEST thing! And he was!



These days Howie's ears look more like this:



And he's still the cutest dog ever!

Our House - Doot doo DOO!

Now that it has been about six ages since I have posted on my blog, I have a lot to catch up on, and will hopefully be doing so over the next (let's be honest here and not commit me to catching up on too much, too fast) several weeks or months. Whatever it turns out to be. I probably won't write too much tonight. I'll post lots of pictures though, since I finally have a few pictures of our house that I can post! So, enough of the chit-chat! Here are the pictures.

Well, I'll say a couple more things, I guess. The first pictures are from our move-in day, June 21st. The rest of the pictures are more recent. Probably within the last two weeks when we finally got pictures on the walls downstairs so it looks decent enough to show to people!

So, without further adieu . . . here are the move in day pictures.























This is our free piano!! The bishop of our ward down here knew we were moving on the same day he gave his wife a baby grand piano for their eighteenth anniversary. So when the new piano was delivered they just had an extra piano and nothing to do with it. Tim got a phone call with their offer for their free, old piano. All we had to do was figure out how to move it.
Fortunately, we had the moving truck and a two other people (thanks Brian and Claudio!!) who were willing to help us haul it up the eighteen stairs from the garage to the living room! You just can't beat a free piano! Thanks Bishop and Sister Bruce!!


This is our free couch! Thanks Brian for looking out for us, and thanks Larry and Nancy Shannon (Brian's parents, and Brian is my brother-in-law) for hooking us up with a great couch! Now that Howie is big enough to get on the furniture there's no keeping him off of it. He loves it!



And now, the more current pictures!

The plant corner! We love plants and have recently started growing some herbs and some vegetables, now that it's not so hot that everything will sprout and then die from the heat!

It's a Boy!!

Wow! It's been a while since I have been at this blogging business! And I've had lots to write about! Finally getting the main level of our house mostly unpacked, the Pulley Family Reunion - good times had by all - good, although short, visits with some awesome friends on our Idaho trip, getting a free couch!

What brings me to my blog tonight though is the newest addition to the Tim and Kira Pulley family. A mostly happy, and healthy little boy!!! He's the cutest little boy in the world! I'd like to say he looks smashing in blue, as most baby boys apparently do, but we've never put clothes on him, so we wouldn't know. Here's a picture!

So this is our little guy, and he's very little. His name as it turns out is Howie Barketti Pulley. We needed an Italian inspired middle name in honor of his Italian heritage. He's a Yorkie/Italian Greyhound mix. He's nine weeks old and maybe weighs as much as two pounds of butter. Fully grown the breeder doesn't expect him to be more than 5-6 pounds. That's not even as big as Cat! He's a snuggle-bug and he hates to be alone. He also hates to go potty in the designated area. Oye ve!

He's also got a good start at being mischevious we think, based on the fact that he managed to climb out of the bathroom that serves as his home base while we are gone at work, by climbing on the big stuffed monkey that keeps him company while we're gone and then climbing over the baby gate that we put up to keep him in. A fat lot of good that did!

Anyway, there will no doubt be future posts regarding this addition to our little family. So stay tuned for more pictures and more of Howie's antics. And, with any luck, we'll manage to get pictures off our camera and onto my computer so I can get my blog updated and post the very highly requested pictures of our new house! (Be forwarned: They'll all have a puppy in them!)

Uh Oh! Tim's in Trouble Now!

Poor, sad Tim. There's no help for him now!

I'm afraid that tonight I have started him on the long and downward spiraling path of patholigical liarness! DUN, Dun, dun!

I know, I'm a very bad influence, but it all starts out just in fun, and then before you know it - or in this case before I know it - I've inspired a lie that we've shared with all his family. I'm going to be kicked out, I just know it, and that makes me sad because I really, truly, 100%, hands down, no question and no competition have the coolest in-laws ever! But alas, perhaps no longer.

You see, it all started when my sister-in-law asked in an e-mail where we'd be after the end of this month since we'd dropped a subtle hint that we'll only be located at our present address through the end of the month. Then, an idea struck me and the little devil on my left shoulder wouldn't let me resist the urge to share it with Tim. "Let's tell her we're going to be in Madagascar! He he he!" So, I shared. And then, it snowballed.

Instead of sending an honest and true e-mail saying that we're buying a house and therefore our address will be changing at the end of the month we sent an e-mail to his entire family announcing that we're going to Abu Dhabi as part of his firm's summer intern program, and even included an Arabic phrase to close which is something equivalent to saying "My hovercraft is full of eels" in English.

So, I'm sorry Tim. Now that you are on this path, there may be no getting off of it, but we're sure going to have fun in the meantime!

Elder Cody Michael "Dork Brother" Philips

My brother isn't really a dork. But of course I wouldn't ever tell him that! What kind of older sister would I be?

Well, my favoritest brother that has outgrown me so far left for Brazil yesterday to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm going to miss that kid! I don't even live in the same house as him anymore and I miss him. Explain to me how that works, because I'm not sure I get it.

This is a picture of my very handsome brother in his suit. He's going to break a lot of hearts in Brazil, for sure, but the Brazilians beauties are just going to have to deal with that as best they can. I informed Elder Philips a long time ago that I have reserved exclusive rights to hand-pick my future sister-in-law, and since I won't have any opportunities to get to know the Brazilian chicas, they are out of the running. Poor, sad girls. : (

What Joy There Is!

Oh what a joyous thing it is to go appliance shopping! We've done no buying yet, but I sure had a good time in the 45 minutes or so we spent with the salesman - half an hour of which was after store closing time - learning about the different features of modern washers, dryers, refrigerators and ranges.

I'm just trying not to get my hopes up too high for the convection oven, on which one of the three shelves can be reduced to half the size of the rest and thus you can fit taller dishes in the oven along with the short stuff. What a glorious thing that would be!

So keep watching. Someday soon, if all goes according to plan, we'll have appliances to fill these holes in the wall!

I'm Not Very Good At Being Home Alone

Today is Tuesday. Tuesday means Tim goes to choir practice and Barbershop practice. I'm quite happy to have a husband who has talent in the vocal arena. I love to sit next to him and listen to him sing. But on Tuesday nights I'm just here in our little apartment all by my onesie, just wishing I wasn't home alone.

I'm not very good at being home alone. It gives me too much quiet time to sit and think about all the family and friends I would love to be playing with, but they are too far away and it makes me depressed. You can see some of said friends in the photo above. (I miss you girls!) I need to make more friends down here. That's all there is to it. I may not really like being a transplant Phoenician right now, but by jove, if we're staying here long enough for home ownership to be worth it, I'm going to like it. It's going to take a lot of brownies though.